B’nai Brith gets $5.4M for Alzheimer’s care

TORONTO — Ottawa is giving B’nai Brith Canada $5.4 million to develop new technologies for Alzheimer’s care, Gary Goodyear, minister of state for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, said last week in Toronto.

The announcement was made Aug. 23 at B’nai Brith’s new 43-bedroom Alzheimer’s facility on Bathurst Street north of Finch Avenue.

The federal money will allow B’nai Brith to create the Centre of Innovative Excellence for Alzheimer’s Care, housed within the B’nai Brith home.

The centre will be managed in partnership with the Ivey International Centre for Health Innovation, which is part of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

The funds will be used to complete construction of the centre and hire eight employees, who will lead collaborations among industry, research and not-for-profit partners.

Within the centre, partners will develop, test and commercialize new Alzheimer’s technologies, products, and care approaches, with the ultimate goal of reaching international markets, officials said.

York Centre MP Mark Adler said that the “announcement demonstrates [the] government’s commitment to unleashing the potential of Canadian innovation to help Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.”

Anne Snowdon, chair of Ivey’s International Centre for Health Innovation, said the centre will be one of the most important strategic centres of health-care excellence in Canada.

“I am speaking not only as a registered nurse, but also as the daughter of an Alzheimer’s patient. It is my professional and personal goal to create this centre of excellence,” Snowdon said.

“[Alzheimer’s patients] deserve optimal quality of life, [and their families] should be able to rest assured that their loved ones are being properly cared for.”